Athletes who have sustained repeated wloes to the head and hes written a book for parents who struggle with allowing their children to play. Joining me now is the author of brain damage in Contact Sports, dr. Bennett amalu. Thank you for having me. The Winter Olympics are under way. Sports are on a lot of peoples minds. What should parents of children under 18 know about Contact Sports . Well, its always been my position knowing what i know that no child under the age of 18 should play the high impact, high Contact Sports. The big six are american football, ice hockey, mixed martial arts, boxing, wrestling, and rugby. In these games, in every play, your child suffers wl s blows t head. There is no safe blow to the head. Repeated blows to the head cause brain damage. If your child plays football, even after just one season, your child has suffered irreversible, irrepairable damage. The brain does not have any reasonable capacity to regenerate itself. Ive looked up thousands of brain cells in brains and have yet to see a brain cell that is dividing normally. Once your brain cell is damaged, thats it. This is such a big issue for many parents. Even me. I have an 11yearold daughter who is starting to get into team sports at school. What about things like lacrosse or soccer, are they safe . Yes. In fact, this is why i wrote my book. Its only 100 pages, people can finish it in less than an hour. People are not aware of it, but lacrosse has the highest concussion rates in all sports after football. I never would have that. So lacrosse and soccer are what i call the less contact, less impact sports. No child under the age of 18 should play lacrosse. For soccer, there should not be any heading the ball whatsoever in soccer below the age of 18. Why 18 . Because that is when your childs brain becomes fully developed, from 18 no heading before 18. Soccer is a high dexterity sport that requires very high levels of brain functioning. Your 7yearold child does not have such levels of brain functioning. Are there any safe sports . Of course. Those are the noncontact, nonimpact sports. Swimming, track and field, table tennis, bad mitten, basketball, baseball. And golf. You visit the International Olympics committee website. In a noncontact sport, repeated wloes s blows are not intrinsic to the play. However, accidents can still occur. So what you do, your child must play safe. These games must be highly regulated. And if anybody plays aggressively, take him or her out of play. My son plays basketball. And something that the school does that i love so much, when the kids play basketball, there is no scoring of the basket. Nobody scorespoints. The kids play, its called basket, and we all have fun. You have said its child abuse to let kids play football. Why . Knowing what we know today as a physician, every two, three years i attend child abuse classes. And i must report child abuse when i see it. Im mandated by law. Knowing what we know today, the fundamental definition of child abuse is the intentional exposure of a child to the risk. Knowing today that just one concussion causes permanent brain damage. Knowing that if a child goes in to play football by 8 00 a. M. On saturday morning, by 11 00 a. M. After hes done playing, he has suffered brain damage. Isnt that intentional exposure of child to the risk of injury . Where do you draw the line, though . So many sports come with some element of risk, and athletes, if theyre serious about a sport need to begin training as youth before theyre 18 to become really, really good at it. Especially lets say at the olympic level. If someone is playing ice hockey, which you identified as a dangerous sport, how do you navigate that . That is a custom that is embedded in our mentality. That may not be true. In 1957, 11 years before i was born, the American Academy of pediatrics published a paper. In 1957, american pediatricians said that no child under the age of 12 should play football, wrestling or boxing, that they do not have any place in any school in the development of think child. Now, the American Armed forces, you cant join until youre 18. Joining the armed forces at 18 has not undermined the preparedness of the military. So youre a child, and you play high impact sports, maybe a child of 6 years old, plays football and plays until 17, does it about 11 years, that child must have received hundreds of thousands of blows. By the time hes 18, his brain is no longer playing at the level you would expect him to play. So if we could step back to think, what if we dont let Children Play until theyre 18, they go through intensive training with impact brains, they could take these games to levels we never, ever imagined, because their brains are impact functioning the highest levels, have not suffered any brain damage. So if children do not play, do not begin exposure early by 18, then they take football to exceptional levels that would never, ever imagined. Thats a new way to think. Youve given people a lot to think about, because this country love football, as you have acknowledged, football is like religion in america. I would ask parts to buy the book and make up your mind. Thank you for being thank you. Turning now to criminal justice, San Francisco could become the first city in the nation to eliminate hefty fees that criminal defendants face after they leave jail. San francisco board of supervisors introduced a bill that would end the practice of charging defendants for electronic monitoring. One of the supporters is jeff adachi who says inmates find themselves locked in a cycle of debt. Joining me now is jeff. Thanks for having me. First of all, can you explain what kinds of fees criminal defendants face after leaving jail . When a person is convicted of even a low level felony or a misdemeanor, that could face as many as 50 fees, both civil and criminal penalties, that are attached. And so it can amount to sometimes thousands of dollars. So this would eliminate ten of the fees that are locally assessed by San Francisco government orb t the courts. Yo you have to pay a monthly fee for probation, charges up front is 1800. A person is then saddled with fines and fees. I had a young man come into my office who had thousands garnished in his paycheck and he could barely afford to support hischildren. Theyre trying to get back on their feet, the jobs probably arent paying that much. What is the longterm impact on these people . Can they Reenter Society . We want to encourage people to live crimefree lives and not feel like they have to break the law to support their families. A lot of people in san francisc. And so if youre going to burden them with fines and fees, its like a payday loan in a sense. You plead guilty just to get out of jail because people cant afford bail. And when they get out of jail, they have this huge debt on their back. Whats going to happen is theyre going to feel more pressure to do something desperate to pay these fines and fees. San francisco is known as a progressive city, but we have some of the deepest racial inequity here. We have a situation where africanamericans up less than 6 of the citys population, but they account for more than half of those in jail. Right. And our numbers are worse than ferguson. If you look at even categories of crime, like drugs, where all the studies show that whites use, abuse and sell drugs more than africanamericans do, theyre arrested at six times the rate. So we have this basic inequity. It also applies to these fines and fees. The fines and fees are primarily assessed against people of color. And that results in whole communities of being affected by these what would you say to people who feel that it costs cities that add minister these programs, lelectronic monitorin, and they feel these defendants were convicted and should pick up some of the costs. The Justice System is not supposed to be based on how much money you have. Bernie madoff was out on bail because he could afford his own security detail. But for the average person, shouldnt really be requiring them to pay the costs of supervision or the cost of a lot of these fines and fees have nothing to do with the crime itself. Theyre like construction for a assessment fees for a dna database. And so what we want is to make sure that if there is going to be a fine and fee assessed that it has something to do with the crime. For example, restitution would not be affected thats when you pay back the cost of a broken window or injuring somebody. Youve been a longtime advocate of bail reform. What are the biggest issues you have now . We filed over eight lawsuits in federal and state court. Weve been pushing for bail reform in the state legislature. Thats a huge bail lobby who only the United States and the philippines are the only two countries that allow a forprofit bail system. So we want to we dont think that the idea of just posting money you could charge if you had the money to post for bail. Whereas a person who has got a 1,000 bail cant get out of jail if they cant afford it. What is is the criteria you wan . It will be based on things how many times you failed to appear court in the past, public safety, a number of factors that can be looked at, which are much more predictive of what a person may do in the future. And more importantly, whether the person can come back to court. Remember, presumption of innocence in this country, but should be a means of ensuring somebody comes back to court. You announced plans to file challenges in every case where bail is set. How many challenges have you filed and how many resulted in bills being lower or an alternative to incarceration . We filed over 800 motions. What we did is we aske judges to apply the law. Weve had a number of decisions from the higher courts saying that the judges are violating the law because theyre not considering the persons ability to pay and not making a record as to why theyre paying bail. In about a third of the cases, weve had bail reduced or had people released. But this is part of the overall reform. California is really behind the ball. We have bill reform in indiana, kentucky, maryland. We need to have it here in california. And under the broader umbrella of criminal Justice Reform, we have about a dozen judges up for reelection in june in San Francisco. We have four public defenders running against them, very rare for incumbent judges to face challengers. What do you think is driving this . These four public defenders decided to run in this race thats coming up and its unusual because we dont have a lot of public defenders who are appointed directly to the bench. Weve only had one in 40 years. We often see prosecutors. These particular public defenders are running against four judges who are appointed by republican and i certainly will support them. I think its important why do you think theyre running, though . Why this year, driven in part by what were seeing happen under the Trump Administration or other factors . Both of those things. Youre seeing trump appointing a lot of judges and youre see thing push for criminal Justice Reform in mass incarceration. They want to change this. Thats part of the motivation for them running against judges. Are you supporting them, endorsing the public defenders who are running . Yes, i am going to support their effort. Again, this is about making sure that people understand why its important have judges from both sides of the aisle. All right. San francisco public defender jeff adachi, thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me. Now to tech. The cofounder and chief architect of next door joins me. The San Francisco company allows neighbors to create private networks on line to share information about thei communities. According to the company, more than 180,000 neighborhoods from the u. S. To europe are using next door to share local content. Kqed is a media partner of door. The cofounder is with us now in the studio. Welcome. Thanks for having fe,. How did the idea come about . About seven years ago, we noticed a trend of social networks becoming more ubiquitous main stream. Facebook for linked in for your professional network. We found it strange that there could connect with the people right outside your front door, your neighbors, the people that were most important to you. So we set out to build a resource that connected neighbors to the information most relevant to them. Ive used it for moving boxes when i was using and gave it back to other people. I posted about them. There are certainly posts about missing and found dogs. And someone who found an organ donor. Thats right. Weve seen everything from daytoday recommendations that neighbors exchange with one another, babysitters, plumbers, mechanics. But more critical use cases, especially around disasters where, for example, in Hurricane Harvey or the fapa wildfires, weve seen neighbors banning together. And in the case of the liver donor, we did see a neighbor put out a message saying hey, one of our neighbors is in the hospital and looking for someone to donate an organ. And we found a liver donor within the a wide variety of different use cases. There are lots of other entities that similar services. Do facebook groups, there are home grown forums. Why should people use next door . I think there are two things that set us apart. The first is when you look at Networks Like facebook or twitter, these are largely platforms for selfexpression. Theyre a place to share photos, status updates and reveal a little bit more about yourself. Next door is purely utility driven. People are coming to use their neighbors as a resource to solve problems. Second thing that is is everyone that youre interacting with is a verified member of the neighborhood community. Each neighborhood is a geographically bounded entity on next door. How do you verify they live there . We have a number of different ways. Mobile phone verification, verification via postcard through the mail, where you redeem an invitation token that proves you had to go to your mailbox and take it out. Once people are verified, that increases the level of that theyre interacting with people in their neighborhood. In this world where the internet is so youbiquitous, the is a concern that people arent interacting face to face more. So why is this necessary . Why cant neighbors just go out and say hi, im your neighbor, lets chat face to face. I think were combatting a trend thats happening in the United States, especially over the past 50 years. One of the inspiring statistics that we saw when we started the company is that 29 of americans claim to know very few of their neighbors, and 28 of americans claim to know not a single neighbor by name. So over half the population with very weak ties into their community. It may seem in our modern, technological world, to use an app is happening. We feel like our job is best performed when an online interaction on next door leads. Your box story, when you needed boxes, ultimately you had to interact with someone to exchange the boxes. Now you know a new neighbor. We see that all the time. Youve also had some growing there have been some problems with racial profiling. Residents were posting messages about people of color in their neighborhoods. What have you done to address this . We were shocked to see our matt form being used in this area, hearing about communities in oakland when we became of this happening was a shock to the system. But we Work Together to redesign our product in a way that is almost unprecedented in technology where a few things that important to us, were to make people aware of the fact that they were using descriptive next without the context around what was suspicious about the activity. So we introduced friction into the posting process to force people to be more specific about the circumstances under which they were posting. Not to be purely describing people on the characteristics of their race without some additional context as to what was suspicious. A person ofolor riding a bike in the neighborhood is not worthy of an alert. But if theyre casing the neighborhood or breaking into cars, thats descriptive text. What about other kinds of posts that people may find offensive concerning religion or gender. Where do you draw the line . We expect that neighborhood leads are responsible for man daning the social decorum. So understanding we are in 180,000 different neighborhoods across the country, the product takes on a lot of the identity. So there are in some cases local issues that need to be discussed but with civil discourse. We have a support team back at hq that helps when those neighborhood leads feel like theyre beyond their capability to handle things. In ten seconds, are you making any money yet . We are starting to earn revenue through native advertising our emails. And you with realtors, as well. Took eight years to get here. All right. Thank you so much. Say hello, say hello the pillsbury doughboy, and the u. S. Army. What do these ads have in common . The same woman is behind these and other ad campaigns. For decades, Carol Williams has worked to market products to a diverse market. She changed how women view themselves and spoke directly to africanamerican audiences. Last year, williams became the first africanamerican woman to be inducted into the Advertising Hall of fame. She sat down earlier with monica lam. Carol williams, thanks for talking withme. Thank you. Im honored. You are known in the advertising world for a campaign you did for the deodorant secret. The tag line was Strong Enough for a man, but made for a woman. I need my secret. How did you come one that . It was one of those times as a creator, when you recognize how women are looked at versus who women actually are. In the media, they were consistently portrayed as weak individuals. They had no need for an efficacious antiperseprant. But the women i knew sweat. They were working 24 7, and at the end oh of the day, they wanted to look good. And still feel dry like a woman. So you didnt just change perceptions of the product, you also changed how women looked at themselves. Absolutely. Thats what its about. That campaign opened the door to begin a history of advertising that speaks to the strength of women. That door was first opened with Strong Enough for a man but made for a woman. You made a series of videos for the army. I didnt think the army had anything for me. What was your assignment there . The United States army had once enjoyed very high participation from africanamericans. So the effort was to make africanamericans aware of the benefits of the united army. I was surprised at what i found in being an officer and what the army helped bring out of me. The educational benefits, what Occupational Training was available. And they would be able to come out of the army and have viable jobs. How do you get a brand or job to speak to so many, so many to say thats my brand this we did an ad for disney. Disney was very, very interested in increasing africanamerican presence in their imagination, inspiring imagination. They really thought it was a price thing. We looked at it. We recognized that it was bigger than that. We really talked about how disney infused your child with knowledge. Parks. You created a seeries of videos for the ymca about water safety targeted at multicultural kids. Why did you feel it was important do that . Young black men were dying at disproportionate numbers. Especially in urban areas, not being exposed to swimming pools or swimming lessons. Less africanamerican women were dying of that issue, and thats because the way we perceived ourselves and our hair, we were naturally saying, no, were not going in the pool. Well just stay on the sideline. So ymca engaged us to help get this message out. The importance of learning how to swim and dispelling the smith that africanamericans cant swim. Anybody can swim if you learn how to swim. I am more than honored to have this special recognition. How did it feel to be inducted into the Advertising Hall of fame . Being inducted into the Advertising Hall of fame was the most incredible experience that i had had. See the magic that once made this industry great. [ applause ] that an africanamerican woman, i just put my head down and enjoyed what keeping up, it takes hard work. And then to be able to portray africanamericans through my eyes as i know them. What a magnificent thing to be able to do. Its been a great journey. Congratulations again. Thank you so much. And that will do it for us. You can find more of our coverage at female announcer p. Allen smiths garden home is brought to you by. The department of arkansas parks and tourism. Na, na, na, na, na na, na, na, na, na na, na, na, na, na female announcer Ralston Family farms. A family farm spanning three generations that grow, mill, and package nongmo, traditional, and aromatic rice using sustainable and ecofriendly practices. You can learn more at ralstonfamilyfarms. Com. Gilbert h. Wild and son. 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